Retreat signalled on maths overhaul

The push to have students engage in ‘real-world’ problem-solving activities has got the thumbs down from the peak maths group.

Australia’s peak group for mathematicians has withdrawn its support for proposed changes to the school curriculum.

The nation’s peak group for mathematicians has dramatically withdrawn its support for proposed changes to the school curriculum, arguing that a push towards having students learn maths by engaging in problem-solving activities would amount to an erosion of standards.

After a backlash from members, the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, whose membership spans leading universities, government agencies and industry, has called for the ongoing maths curriculum review process to be halted pending further consultation.

The highly regarded group, which bills itself as a national voice for the mathematical sciences, also criticised moves to delay or scrap the teaching of key maths content and introduce “ambiguous” terms, such as “mathematising – a concept with which teachers have no experience” into to the curriculum.

In a submission to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, to be made public on Thursday, AMSI concedes that, although having initially endorsed a move to embed a problem-solving ­approach into the teaching of maths, it had “revised” its position. “AMSI and its members believe that the new curriculum should be delayed, and we ask ACARA to halt the current ­review process,” the submission says.

AMSI director Tim Marchant said that the organisation’s previous backing of proposed changes to the curriculum, ­including the release of a joint statement with partner mathematics and science organisations in April, had come before the draft document was formally released.

“At that time we weren’t across the details and once we were able to speak to members we found some were really quite concerned – alarmed really – at the proposed changes,” ­Professor Marchant said. Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge, who has previously expressed reservations over elements of the draft curriculum, urged ACARA to consider the feedback.

“AMSI is a respected organisation and if they are concerned about the draft maths curriculum then I will be listening closely – I hope ACARA is also,” he said.

“I certainly won’t be supporting any curriculum documents which water down standards and are not based on evidence.”

The curriculum authority embarked on its review of the national school curriculum in mid-2020 at the request of federal, state and territory education ministers amid concerns about Australia’s declining performance on international tests, including the OECD’s PISA.

While changes to humanities content, including the elevation of Indigenous history and culture over that of Western civilisation and Australia’s Christian heritage, have attracted some disquiet, the push to elevate the role of problem solving in students’ maths learning, suggesting an inquiry-style approach over that of explicit teacher-led instruction, has attracted the biggest backlash.

Other proposed revisions to the maths curriculum include the re-arrangement of when particular content is taught, with ACARA arguing that it was important that students are able to sufficiently understand maths concepts before they are taught procedures. As a result, learning to tell the time to the half-hour has been moved from Year 1 to Year 2, learning linear equations has been bumped from Year 7 to 8 and linear equations with algebraic fractions has been deemed ­“non-essential and removed from Year 10. An open letter describing the maths draft curriculum as “flawed” and “unworkable” and demanding it be scrapped has attracted about 200 signatures, including from members of AMSI and its past directors, including Tim Brown and Tony Guttmann.

Australian National Univer­sity statistician Alan Welsh, who chairs the National Committee for Mathematical Sciences, also supported the letter. Professor Welsh is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, which was a party to the April joint statement with AMSI that argued for a greater focus on problem solving in maths classes. That statement, titled Why Maths Must Change, argued that it was “not enough to have knowledge” and that students “must have the skills to take that knowledge and apply it to solve unknown problems”.

“Abilities to problem-solve, mathematise, hypothesise, model are all skills that add worth to acquired knowledge,” it said. “Mathematics learning cannot sit in silos that focus on content and procedures.”

It is a viewpoint that is championed by the US educational consultancy Center for Curriculum Design, which was hired by ACARA on a $215,000 contract to help rewrite the maths curriculum. The end result is a maths curriculum whereby, according to draft documents, students “learn through the approaches for working mathematically, including modelling, investigation, experimentation and problem solving, all underpinned by the different forms of mathematical reasoning”.

While some AMSI members welcomed the emphasis on problem solving and inquiry learning, others “expressed considerable concern at the manner in which these had been implemented”

According to the AMSI submission, the “open-ended nature of many of the proposed inquiries was at odds with effective mathematical problem solving”.

“Members also expressed concerns that this new emphasis comes at the expense of mastery and fluency,“ it says.

“Mastery of mathematical approaches is needed before student problem solving can be effective.”

The submission also criticises a push to delay or remove some content from the curriculum.

“The average performance by Australian students in the PISA survey declined by 33 percentage points (or about one year of schooling) since 2003,” it says.

“Our expectations for Australian students in the 2020s should not be lower than what was being achieved by the cohort of maths students from 20 years ago.”

A spokeswomen for ACARA said the proposed revisions to the Australian curriculum were developed with extensive consultation with internal and external subject experts, curriculum experts and teachers.